In the meantime I've been hit twice By the rockin' recipe exchange (clearly news of my culinary expertise is spreading) -- do any of you want to join it? It's a chain email about, hmmm, sending recipes to each other.

Comments

Me too, and it prompted a crisis in which I realised that I don't actually know how to cook anything. I mean, not in a way I can easily explain to someone else without them being there in the kitchen and watching what I'm doing. Most of my recipes would be extremely vague and unhelpful: "Use A ingredient, or possibly B ingredient, or C ingredient if you fancy it, in A amount, or maybe B amount, or C amount if you're really hungry. Cook using technique A if you're lazy, or B if you're less lazy, for A, B, or C length of time depending on how crunchy you want it to be, and eat when it smells right."

Well, this was my recipe, sent to Ellen. Note the very general info ahoy...

Brazilian bean stew (feijoada lite)

Ingredients* Kidney beans (you can also use black beans) - not the tinned kind, soak 'em overnight before you aim to cook them. I normally use a 500 g packet so that there's plenty to freeze for later.* if you want a veg version of this, use a tin of tomatoes and whatever veg you want to put in - I often put in sliced courgette and maybe some leek* if you want a meaty version, use bacon and a sausage that is like chorizo - something dried and a bit spicy/salty. You can also use dried pork, as per the traditional Brazilian version, but I mostly don't* And definitely some onion, pepper, salt.

Steps1. Soak the beans, preferably overnight. If you can't be bothered to do this then you can cook 'em for several hours instead, or fewer hours but in a pressure cooker. Anyway, the aim is to cook 'em until they are vaguely soft but not mushy.2. Once they are cooked, keep 'em simmering. Prepare a separate frying pan with olive oil, salt, pepper - and saute your onions and whatever veg you want to put in (apart from the tin of tomatoes).2a. If you are making a meaty version, fry the bacon as well. If you're putting in chorizo, no need to fry this.3. Once the veg are sauted, tip them all into the big pan with the simmering beans. Put in the tomatoes too.4. Cook for a long time, preferably at least a couple of hours.5. Once the beans are really nice and soft it's also good to scoop out a couple of ladlesful of the beans themselves, and to press them into a pulp with the back of a spoon. Add it back into the stew so that it helps to thicken it.6. Basically, the longer it cooks the nicer it will be. Particularly nice when reheated the next day or after it's been frozen & reheated.

Serving suggestionWith white rice, possibly with a nice bit of fried steak. Traditional Brazilian way would be to serve with toasted manioc flour and some sweet slices of orange, which is rather nice actually (particularly if made with the very salty kind of dried pork).